The entire Garmin-Sharp team has pulled out of the Tour Méditerranéen ahead of today’s key stage which finishes at Mont Faron above Toulon, after all 16 of its bikes were stolen from a truck parked outside the team hotel in Aix-en-Provence.

Ordinarily, Martin would have been one of the favourites for today’s stage, although he said he had woken up with a head cold and that the theft of the bikes had solved the decision of whether or not to race.

Another Garmin-Sharp rider, Michael Kreder, revealed that rival teams had offered to help out, tweeting: “Different teams want to give us bikes to race on… But it's not the same feeling as our own bikes so we will not race today.”

News of the theft had been broken earlier on Twitter by London-based chiropractor Matt Rabin, who acts as soigneur to the team: While everyone was sleeping, some unscrupulous local scallywags have gone & pilfered ALL THE BIKES #TypiqueDeRegion.”

That tweet had a link to a picture of the team’s near-empty truck, and Rabin added: “Anyone in S France/Spain gets tried to flog a moody team bike, Cervelo's get in touch with the local Gendarme rapido.

“The car was parked up against the back of the truck as is standard, but they MOVED THE CAR & MOVED IT BACK, unbelievable.

He added: You couldn't hope to make €10k from robbing a bank these days, so why not rob a cycling team and nip off with €250k #easynightswork, w******.”

It seems clear that the theft of the bikes was a planned operation rather than an opportunistic one, not least because the thieves would have to have had the means of getting away with their haul, and Rabin tweeted later that two security cameras covering the location of the truck had been “broken.”

The theft of the bikes and withdrawal of Garmin-Sharp is another setback for organisers of this year's Tour Méditerranéen, who had been forced to cancel yesterday's Stage 3 from Marseille to Saint Rémy de Provence due to concerns about guaranteeing security of the route.

It’s by no means the first time thieves have targeted bike races. Lance Armstrong and former Italian national champion Giovanni Visconti have both had custom bikes stolen in the past – in Armstrong’s case, a TT bike at the Tour of California – while Team Type 1 was forced to pull out of the Settimana Coppi e Bartali following the theft of all of its Colnago bikes in 2011.

Nor are bicycles the only target. During last year’s Giro d’Italia, photographers Jered Gruber and Veeral Patel both had thousands of pounds worth of kit stolen from a secure parking compound during the team time trial in Verona, but they were able to continue working on the race after organisers RCS Sport stepped in to help them out.

Ha, had it been with Di2 would be hilarious. But really, I'm guessing most people would look at bike forums if they are thinking of getting something like that and there is a high chance they might come across it. Might be somewhere less concerned with PCness.

But its shocking to say the least, do we know if all the trucks were at the same place? Why only Garmin targeted. Better bikes to be had

I don't know the specifics of the hotel, but if you look at eg the TDF road book the teams tend to be dotted around hotels for logistics purposes, maybe two or three at the same location... most hotels simply don't have car parks big enough to accommodate 20-odd team buses, support vehicles, cars etc plus be able to feed 200 riders as well as all the team staff at the same sitting.

Typically, team buses will arrive at the start ahead of the race and be there at the finish afterwards, parked up on car parks, piazzas, even side streets set aside for the purpose (think Tour of Britain when it hits Whitehall) but team hotels themselves more often than not will be some distance from the town centre, often modern hotels on arterial routes.

As for why Garmin, I'm not sure whether there's any way of telling whether they were specifically targeted, or whether it was a case of whichever team happened to be unlucky enough to be staying at that hotel on the specific night in question.

Perhaps teams staying in the same hotel could work together to reduce the risk? Parking trucks tightly back-to back would prevent access via the main, rear doors, and strategically parking against walls or adjacent to team buses might prevent the tea leaves getting in via the smaller side doors.

As bikes they'll be worthless, but the components are prob not bargain basement. Let's say Eu100 for the wheels, maybe a couple of 100 for the Di bits. Then there's tyres, saddles, brakes and general gizmos. Still not a bad nights work. Cervelo R5's? An environmentally unfriendly bonfire

As others have said, the bikes will be split up into their components and sold up which will make it very difficult to trace who/where they are being sold. I would imagine the frames will be stored for a while and then sold on later when the story is largely forgotten.

Whenever I go to a car club event, two people are responsible for staying up all night patrolling the parking lot where the cars are parked. And these aren't even high-dollar cars. You'd think with the stakes being what they are, and all the money involved, a top pro cycling team would do at least that much, but no.

I can understand they don't want to put stuff on the race bikes but surely it's not beyond the wit of man to fit some security.

OK, I'm biased, but a chain and ground anchor come to mind. Gosh! We even make some! I do believe there might be other manufacturers, too.

This sort of thing keeps happening, with demo bikes stolen from importers and shops and magazines etc. I have much more sympathy for individual members of the public that have bikes stolen than for people in the trade that should know better. If I was a sponsor of a team that allowed an event to be compromised by such a basic failure to protect critical items, I would be asking stern questions of the team.

The perpetrators are still thieving scumbags, but while the trade sets such a poor example of how to protect valuables, how likely is it that bike theft will reduce overall?

I've worked in security on & of for years & sadly if some drongo wants to get sumit no matter how well it is covered there no way other than standing with your hands on it that it cant be taken & even then! Need to Get Big Laim Neason after them scrots!!

I've worked in security on & of for years & sadly if some drongo wants to get sumit no matter how well it is covered there no way other than standing with your hands on it that it cant be taken & even then! Need to Get Big Laim Neason after them scrots!!

I think that's defeatist, honestly. Do you leave your car unlocked by the same reasoning? It's all a case of using an appropriate deterrent to match the risk, and although no security is 100% infallible, an appropriate deterrent will still stop the vast majority of thieves. Leaving your car unlocked, or your race team bikes unlocked, is rather asking for it IMHO. I'm not condoning theft at all, but the fact that these guys even put the team car back after breaking into the truck suggests they felt they had plenty of time and had not taken any risk at all. It was easy. That hardly sounds like the team had made much effort to protect the bikes. Perhaps if they had secured the bikes properly inside the truck, the scrotes might have taken extra time and made extra noise dealing with it such that they got seen or got scared off. We don't want to give the thieves an easy time.